Year: 2002
Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)
Composer(s): Michael Richard Plowman
Number of tracks: 38

★★★★★

Tension Without Relief

Today I'm taking you on a journey back in time. To a world before Angela Merkel was German Chancellor, when people were just getting used to this 'euro' and video games were still daring to experiment. Here a game mixes open-world with 3D graphics, there the first good movie adaptations come out. And somewhere next to it, one of the co-founders of the stealth genre, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, is being created. Sure, there were already pioneers like Metal Gear or the Dark Project-series, better known as Thief, but the former was just typically Japanese and only available on consoles and the latter was set in the steampunk Middle Ages.

That's why the move to combine 3D shooter gameplay with a down-to-earth secret agent story and sneaking action almost seemed like a logical consequence. If you then put a well-known author in front of the title, you have a game that at least arouses interest. Nowadays, no publisher takes the risk of a new IP. Instead, there's the hundredth script shooter with great staging, tired gameplay and a few stealth passages. An entire stealth game with an AAA budget? That can't be fun to play!

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (2002)

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004)

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005)

How I wish I could sit my 14-year-old self at the table at board meetings like this and talk about back then. How scared I was when I played my first Thief-game, Thief: Deadly Shadows, and how I held my breath when I was almost discovered. And how proud I was when I successfully snuck through the level, just like the eponymous, albeit pacifist, shadow. It simply can't be replicated today, because the average player's patience barely lasts longer than 30 seconds ... 30 seconds used to be the loading time for the settings menu! God, I'm old and bitter.

Let's get back to the Splinter Cell-series, which never had the most exciting stories to tell, but instead ran smoothly in terms of gameplay and at least brought a bit of flair to the skillful avoiding of enemies with a likeable and cool main character. Like so many things, it unfortunately went down the drain at some point because the focus was more on shooters and less on sneaking - although Splinter Cell is not alone in this. Anyway, my aim is not to get you excited about this game, which is probably more than a little dated these days, but to review the soundtrack. Due to the fact that I'm already talking a lot in the introduction, it should be clear to the reader that there's not much to say about it:

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is ... a stealth game from back in the day. And as was the case back then, composer Michael Richard Plowman accepted the assignment with a kiss and mixed together something that sounds like a rehash of The Matrix-films and the Command & Conquer-series released three years earlier in its action moments, and otherwise like a 'best of the most beautiful sounds you can hear in a transformer station'. Because the motto here is: Atmosphere over melody. The composer does try to set various accents, such as the implied clock ticking in the USA-tracks, the Asian-influenced vocals and instruments of the Burma-tracks or the techno wobble and sonar drone that a CIA-building apparently emits.

All in all, however, what you get here is more of a continuation of the acoustics of spiritual predecessors such as Soul Reaver and the aforementioned Thief-games - and those only really come into their own with nostalgia goggles on. Conversely, however, it creates a suitable tension that subliminally accompanies our sneaking adventures and builds up previously named and long-missing adrenaline. It may be suitable when playing, but for listening without the game I recommend the soundtrack of the Thief-remake from 2014. Although this is undoubtedly the worse game, the focus on action means you can enjoy it even outside the game. Nevertheless, when given the choice, I would have preferred a good Thief-game in the tradition of its predecessors ... you can't have everything

Nostalgia warning

The rating of the individual tracks is purely subjective and clearly colored by my own experience with the game. You can find out more in the article About Nostalgia.

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Ratings
01	Main Menu	Michael Richard Plowman	3
02	Training Assault Course	Michael Richard Plowman	2
03	Training Covert Ops	Michael Richard Plowman	2
04	Georgia Streets	Michael Richard Plowman	2
05	Georgia Police Station	Michael Richard Plowman	2
06	Defense Ministry Infiltration	Michael Richard Plowman	1
07	Defense Ministry Nikoladze's Office	Michael Richard Plowman	2
08	Oil Rig Pipeline	Michael Richard Plowman	2
09	Oil Rig Data Hub	Michael Richard Plowman	1
10	Georgia Stress	Michael Richard Plowman	3
11	Georgia Fight	Michael Richard Plowman	3
12	CIA Lobby	Michael Richard Plowman	2
13	CIA Server	Michael Richard Plowman	2
14	CIA Information Retrieval	Michael Richard Plowman	2
15	Kalinatek Parking Lot	Michael Richard Plowman	1
16	Kalinatek Data Archives	Michael Richard Plowman	2
17	Kalinatek Roof	Michael Richard Plowman	2
18	USA Stress	Michael Richard Plowman	2
19	USA Fight	Michael Richard Plowman	3
20	Burma Streets	Michael Richard Plowman	2
21	Burma Embassy Infiltration	Michael Richard Plowman	2
22	Burma Abattoir	Michael Richard Plowman	2
23	Burma Abattoir Stables	Michael Richard Plowman	2
24	Burma Embassy Return Streets / Infiltration	Michael Richard Plowman	2
25	Burma Embassy Return Warehouse	Michael Richard Plowman	2
26	Burma Restaurant	Michael Richard Plowman	2
27	Burma Stress	Michael Richard Plowman	3
28	Burma Fight	Michael Richard Plowman	3
29	Presidential Palace Infiltration	Michael Richard Plowman	3
30	Presidential Palace Library	Michael Richard Plowman	3
31	Common Fight	Michael Richard Plowman	3
32	Mission Complete	Michael Richard Plowman	3
33	Mission Failed	Michael Richard Plowman	2
34	Death	Michael Richard Plowman	1
35	Kola Cell Exploration	Michael Richard Plowman	3
36	Vselka Infiltration	Michael Richard Plowman	2
37	Vselka Submarine Exploration 1	Michael Richard Plowman	1
38	Vselka Submarine Exploration 2	Michael Richard Plowman	1